Saturday, December 6, 2008

I've never been tagged, and then suddenly I was tagged twice! I must say, these both required some thought, but not so much that I couldn't manage.

First, Suzana from the ever wonderful Home Gourmets tagged me with a challenge to choose three of my favorite cookbooks (I'm assuming cookbooks because opening it up to all books would turn it into a herculean task). Now, understand that I live in a very small Manhattan apartment and I have literally over 1,000 books stacked and crammed and shelved. They tower over every available space, they sit with me on the couch, they lay in piles on the bed until they're scooped up and laid lovingly right beside so that we can actually sleep. They're stacked up on the floor and they easily fill all 5 of my bookcases. The vast majority are on art, but a substantial (and ever-growing) part are cookbooks.

Some might say I have too many, as though books were all interchangeable objects and accumulating more were akin to buying repeats. But books live with you in a way few (if any) other objects do. I have always been most comfortable in a room filled with books.

So here are my three current choices, with the caveat that choosing favorites is impossible. But for today, these three caught my eye:

1. Tessa Kiros: Apples for Jam.

I've cooked a few recipes out of this book for the blog. Her books are filled with beautiful photos of food, family, landscape and ingredients. These are the kinds of books that transport you.

2. Sue Style: A Taste of Alsace.

I've never been to Franco-German influenced area of France, but if I were to visit, I'd forgo a guidebook and bring this instead. Part history, part travelogue and many parts cookbook, A Taste of Alsace presents the intimate connections between food, culture, land and people through an historian's insatiable curiosity.

3. Rick Bayless: Mexican Everyday.

I love this book for a number of reasons. Mexican is one of my favorite cuisines, I have easy and inexpensive access to many obscure latino ingredients because of where I live, and it was a gift from my sister. My sister lives in Chicago and works in advertising, a job with many perks. One of which was a visit to the famed Frontera Grill, where she got to meet Rick Bayless himself. When she asked if she could buy a cookbook to have signed, he let her pick any book off the shelf for free, and agreed to sign it for me. We are lucky girls.

You can choose to participate or not, but I'm interested to see what these bloggers will choose. So for this meme, I'm tagging:

Andrea, thanks for playing along with the book tag - it was great fun reading your picks! Tessa's books are a delight to the eyes. I didn't know the other two you picked, and will have a look. ;-) Thanks!

Esi, okay basically Norwegian fajitas are my Norwegian fiancé's excuse to put whatever he feels like in a tortilla, including canned pineapple. When I called him on it, he said they were Norwegian fajitas!

Sam, I'll be interested to see what you come up with!

Chrissy, yay for you!

Jude, I know, my sister is the best! You're lucky though, because I've never been to one of his restaurants!